Andrew Gingerich

Whatever you do, DON'T BUY DAZZLE. It's a poorly designed product with terrible documentation and worse tech support. Things may have changed since my bad experience with Dazzle, but I would be very cautious if I were you. I would either get an internal capture card (as mentioned above) or a Pinnacle MovieBox (I think that's the name).

I don't know anything about stock photo compilations, but I HAVE built my own stabilizer for about $15. I built mine out of some galvanized piping and a freeweight (it's basically a stick that you screw into the camera on one end with a weight on the other end). There are plenty of variations and tons of plans all over the internet. And although I haven't personally tried it, I have heard that you can just put your camera in a shopping bag with a hole cut for the lens. These methods are a bit shaky and difficult to control (there's a reason a professional steadicam setup is so expensive), but they are a significant improvement over handheld shots.

What about the price of shooting on 16 as compared to Super8? Factoring in the cost of film stock, processing, and telecine, how would the per minute price of shooting 16mm short ends & recans compare to the per minute price of shooting, say, Super8 K40?

I use the spring-wound Krasnogorsk Quarz 1x8S-2, which was actually used as a field camera for TV news pieces due to its rugged design. I just shot my first two rolls and I got back some incredibly good results. I bought this camera on ebay for about $60 (including shipping from the Ukraine).